Roleplaying as cities

[Megan]

There are all things we have already begun to consider and are currently on role to produce. They have been put a little behind on the list of things to do for the moment as the admin team is working hard to provide plugins to help with the RP effect atm. Once the admin team is back on track ill make sure to pester them about getting such rules solidated :3

My plan is to make the majority of crimes punishable by the towns themselves and only extreme measures are to be taken to the hands of the admin team. Also there will be less annoying the admin team, or have them annoyed and angry at you and have to face their wrath.

Any and all town mayors should be contemplating their own town rules and punishments, setting up how they want to place people on trial, etc and put said information with your town's census information.

 

[Legion]

Yay!

 

[InfamousPride]

I will start on that right away megan

 

[Gaby]

that's all good for war or stuff, but what about more personal RPs? my character is not very political, and lives in a very reclusive town. I've seen battles and things like that on the forums, but to have my character participating seems rather ooc. :/

 

[Bellon the Wise]

I would just like to say that I love what the administrative staff has done and is doing. I think atkyre has a romanticized idea of what roleplaying should be. When I first came to Altera I did just as Megan said, joined the first town that seemed reasonable rather than searching out for a right fit. I ended up in Aurolus when, in reality, I probably would have been in either Aspendale or Warstrom. I did not want to leave Aurolus but I just had a different way of thinking.

That being said, there doesn't need to be a War to be rp. Yes there needs to be conflict but it doesn't have to end up with ransacking a town or laying slaying other players.

I just got into an altercation in Fornost Errain the other day. A very great rp story, a player was demon possesed and called upon the Wizards to help. First of all when I went to the town 4 people followed us!!! I could tell, as they had swords in their hands that they just wanted a fight. Got to Fornost and EVERYONE was talking!!! I couldn't even follow the rp storyline. When I rp, I like to pass the story along to someone else, let them speak and become involved. Long story short, one thing lead to the next and before I knew it, the mayor of the town had all of his townsfolk attacking me. I was able to teleport away but it still went ary and I suffocated in a wall. That is not good rping and is aggravating.

I think the dissatisfaction with rp on the server lays at its core. The towns!!!

The majority of the towns are not towns at all, they are a group of people all working for themselves instead of for the group as a whole.

I couldn't agree with Megan more. The reason I think Uthrandir is doing so well is because I purposefully restricted the building in the town. I make so that we provide for each other, they have duties and have to interact with each other. Its almost a forced interaction. The other day RandomCayh mined THREE stacks of gold and GAVE them to me, along with diamond and lapiz... as a result we have an amazing Summoning Circle. That's community!

I found, as Megan said, it was just a collection of people doing their own thing rather than interacting with each other. So far in my town we are using less than half of our available plots. That in itself is a huge influence. I don't have to add any Tom Fool to my town because in reality, I don't need them! Further more, if any of my current citizens becomes disrespectful, i can let them go with out any concern for space.

I focus on quality. My towns people are a little eager to expand but I'm halting it, because the tower is not perfected yet. I don't believe in maximizing mediocrity... its just my personality. Perfection!!!

Rp can be farming, donating to other towns, building relations.... Today we had a wonderful rp where one of my Apprentices to some unappropriate liberties to a female Apprentice of mine, we had fun rping the situation, comforting the female Apprentice, letting the Professors deal with it and issuing a punishment; The Apprentice has to fame 10 stacks of wood, back 10 stacks of bread and deliver them to his classmates, a 2,000 radiant fine and 10 stakes of backed smooth stone.

So my solution...
Controlled conflict. I've been trying as hard as a can to promote Cubey, SallyPirate and Kitbuzel as much as I can. I think having these baddies is enough to meet the conflict needs of the server. These characters should have the resources and means to really provide resistance.

Example:

Cause: Random town does not have a Cathedral in the town with a holy fountain.
Effect: Cubey demon harasses the town.... how?
Action: Spawns 3 beholders every day (minecraft day) in the town
Result: Town has to band together to build the chapel to the right specifications. Towns people don't go out at night. Town people build better defenses. When town build chapel demonic attacks stop.

Example 2:

Cause: Random town citizens go to the Skull Kingdom unannonced
Effect: Kithbuzel becomes angry
Action: Places 4 undestroyable mob spawners on the outskirts of the town
Action: Town holds meetings to figure how to stop the undead attack
Result: Town people must retrieve a book of Healing from Aspendale to repell undead

Example 3:
Cause:Sally Pirate is being Sally Pirate
Effect: Sally Pirate kidnaps a Mayor (teleport to a cell)
Action: Sally Pirate demands a randsom
Action: Town pays the Randsom, town goes to an ally for help then storms Sallys Hovel
Resulty: After driving back numerous NPCs Town breaks free Mayor

There are just 3 examples of a controled conflict. I'm a saying that people won't get pissed in the process? No, however its a lot better than going in a town to cleanse a possession and 30 people talking at once then dying.

I know this is long... sorry... my opinion.

 

[Legion]

Aye mate you are correct.
The thing i see in places like warstrom(no offence arkkaine) is that the people there do not have a sense of communtiy.
As a result, i cant rp successfully with that town.
So, what i have done is:
Planned and designed an RP intensive town.
Shadowsmalls, Vangarrett, halfmad, Castellan and Axex can vouch for me on that.
Im have instituted rp into the very essence of town.
We havnt actually started building yet however.

The idea is that i have selected a small number of people i know like and trust, and now we can rp as a community, doing things for each other for the good of the town.

Ill need to talk to Lars and Half but once its up and running, ill open it up to other players to visit and go through its dungeons.

 

[bettymorlock]

I know i am a bit late on posting this but when it comes down to being restrictive with your city, like who you bring in, it tends to but your town on a bad start. For example, Rukhs-Gathol has been around for a long time i started it the first week the server moved to this map. It still sits there empty. We need to find a way to get ppl to join towns by more then just there name. Im not sure how this will work but I feel that the reason RP is not happening is because the towns do not have any story. like for example, towns that do not have a specific player base do not have anything that binds them together.

The issue is that ppl do not want to have to wait to join a town so they can play; this leads to ppl just joining what ever town they can at that time I am not sure what we can do that will actually work but if anyone has any ideas throw then out there. And DO NOT SAY let us build in the wild. That probably not ganna happen. We issued that because we wanted to make ppl start communities and that is what it has done.

 

[Stevey]

I'm making an introduction quest for newcomers that sends them to all the towns on the server, and they make quite a bit of startup cash from it as incentive. That should help out a lot for deciding what town to join.

 

[Megan]

*cough* let us build in the wild, but anything built in the wild can be griefed? *cough* >_>

Would let players get started and provide time before picking a town to move to for a protected house that cant get griefed... <_<

Also lets players be bandits and pirates and do the server some good while rping as bad people - tearing down the built junk in the wild.

 

[Dauntless001]

Aye mate you are correct.
The thing i see in places like warstrom(no offence arkkaine) is that the people there do not have a sense of communtiy.
As a result, i cant rp successfully with that town.

Sadly Legion I agree with you there, Warstrom is one of the largest towns on the server with some very impressive builds and some great RP potential but sadly there are only a small minority of us that are on regularly and act like a community, most people want in, build themselves a house and are rarely heard from again (Tyranna all over again). Ark has RP jobs planned for within the town itself but nothing global yet that I know of.

That said I do hope to organise a global gladiatorial tournament one day accepting combatants from any town / background once our arena is repaired.

 

[bettymorlock]

*cough* let us build in the wild, but anything built in the wild can be griefed? *cough* >_>

Would let players get started and provide time before picking a town to move to for a protected house that cant get griefed... <_<

Also lets players be bandits and pirates and do the server some good while rping as bad people - tearing down the built junk in the wild.

you see thats not a terrible idea cause i do seeing that as a good thing for rp, but I dont want to promote that kinda stuff. It may lead to some arguments that i just dont want to get into.

 

[Kruziik]

One of the biggest problems for the larger towns is time zones, I know Skara Brae has about 40 people but the last few times I've been over not a soul has been in the town, that's been the case with Warstrom too. Large town doesn't necessarily mean better/more active, if you can find a town with people on at the same time as you that's always going to work out better. I'm starting to think the Altera Census should show the number of players in each time zone (when they are actually on), but that's a lot of work for Mayors!

I'm also not a huge fan of /tc - it detracts from RP in the town itself, if a visitor comes and the residents are chatting in /tc rather than /rp the town seems dead ESPECIALLY if it's a large town as you might not be able to find anyone.

 

[bettymorlock]

One of the biggest problems for the larger towns is time zones, I know Skara Brae has about 40 people but the last few times I've been over not a soul has been in the town, that's been the case with Warstrom too. Large town doesn't necessarily mean better/more active, if you can find a town with people on at the same time as you that's always going to work out better. I'm starting to think the Altera Census should show the number of players in each time zone (when they are actually on), but that's a lot of work for Mayors!

I'm also not a huge fan of /tc - it detracts from RP in the town itself, if a visitor comes and the residents are chatting in /tc rather than /rp the town seems dead ESPECIALLY if it's a large town as you might not be able to find anyone.

ya it kinda is a lot 2 ask.

 

[atkrye]

you see thats not a terrible idea cause i do seeing that as a good thing for rp, but I dont want to promote that kinda stuff. It may lead to some arguments that i just dont want to get into.

Ive been on servers where this has been allowed, and as long as you say "WE WONT HELP YOU WITH ANY MURDERING/GRIEFING/STEALING IN THE WILD" in the rules, then they shouldnt bother you

 

[Megan]

that was my idea... make towny insurance against griefing... and everyone else is on their own...

 

[atkrye]

An ideal scenario would be hardcore gaming rules outside of towns. Stealing Murdering Scamming and Griefing(as long as it doesnt kill the landscape) alongside freedom to build and stuff. Then towns should be able to set their own rules (but pvp on everywhere).
This would be much more medieval, with the areas outside of towns being more lawless.

 

[Megan]

That was my original idea atkrye... as well as people building towns in the wild as bandit towns that players could raid and pillage and destroy... with catapults to launch players in, etc... maybe someday though

 

[atkrye]

not someday! i want it nowww

 

[Megan]

ehh... still working with the team to find a more compromisable solution... there are lots of unforseen problems that may arise from simply doing it like that. As well, not everyone wants that style of play. give us time...

 

[Legion]

Well, from my observations, allowing any wild building is not a good idea.
Firstly, people just wont build good looking things, because with towny they had to pay to build so they made sure their builds were good.

Also i spent several months on a server that had hardcore gaming rules set in the wild, and it was awful
You had people sitting just outside towns waiting for noobs or un armoured people and then would just kill them and take their items. Also people actually will destroy the landscape, as they will build things that look awful and will dig up dirt holes to hole up in, and build the infamous 1 high tower to escape somebody.

With wild building and hardcore gameplay, rping gets shoved to the side, and the server becomes a deathmatch.
It is unrealistic to think that all rp can be done inside of towns, and so while some players are having fun rping they will get interrupted and attacked and or harassed by people who just want to kill people.
Back then murder was still a crime, so it doesnt make sense to condone it in the wild and banish it inside a town.

Hardcore rules can only lead to:
A decrease in rp
An increase in ppl tht complain due to lost items
An increase in 1 wide dirt and or cobble towers
An increase in crap builds in the wild that look bad due to griefing or just looking bad to begin with
A decrease in fun for rpers
An increase in fun for people who just like to kill people for their items or grief things

With this we would be settting a double standard, saying griefing is a bannable offence, but its ok if you do it 5 blocks to the left where no one has happened to claim the land yet.